IAM1011- Inventor Helps Millenials with Personal Branding Coaching

Lynda T. Correa Peralta is the inventor of the Pocket Palette, a full-face, travel makeup kit that fits in your wallet. The experience of building a brand for her product and for herself has prompted Lynda to launch personal branding coaching for reluctant millennials and others who are new to personal branding.

• CEO Hack: Book- Moonwalking with Einstein
• CEO Nugget: Never say no to yourself first
• CEO Defined: The inventor, coach, and the leader

Website: https://thepocketpalette.com/

https://lyndalatinamba.com/

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Transcription

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00:22 – Intro

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

00:50 – Gresham Harkless

Hello, Hello, Hello. This is Gresh from the IMCEO Podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Linda Correa-Peralta of Pocket Palette. Linda is awesome, and happy on the show.

01:01 – Lynda T. Correa Peralta

Thank you. I'm so happy to be here Gresham. Thank you for having me.

01:04 – Gresham Harkless

Definitely super excited to have you on as well too and before we jump in I want to read a little bit more about Linda so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. And Linda is the inventor of the Pocket Palette, a full-face travel makeup kit that fits in your wallet. The experience of building a brand for her product and for herself has prompted Linda to launch personal branding coaching for reluctant millennials and others who are new to personal branding. Linda, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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01:28 – Lynda T. Correa Peralta

Absolutely. Let's go.

01:30 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Let's do it then. So to kind of kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit here a little bit more on how you got started, what I call your CEO story.

01:38 – Lynda T. Correa Peralta

Absolutely. So I think that I've always been kind of like a creator. And I was really brought up to think about like, how would you solve this problem? And I think that's probably why I don't like to do puzzles in my free time because I feel like I'm always solving problems. But all of this childhood training of, you know, what would you do or how do you solve this problem or figure it out really came to a head in 2017 when I first had this problem of, you know, being a busy woman on the go and having to take care of my makeup when I was out and about. And I really just found the experience of having a huge bulky makeup or really just a huge purse kind of weighing me down only because I just had to have retouched my makeup.

As a woman, it was very important for me to have my makeup set when I was going into meetings. So I figured there has to be an easier way to travel with your makeup. And so that's what led me to create the pocket palette, which if The original pocket palette was actually a sandwich bag with squished-in makeup into that area. So if you think about a sandwich bag was sectioned off. That's, that was the first pocket palette so that's what led me to with some tinkering end up with our final product which is again, a pocket palette which is a full-face travel makeup kit. And it has 4 key products. So it has a lotion slash BB cream, a lip and cheek color, and a mascara. And it's all packed into a disposable pouch so that If you get caught without makeup or if you are only going to be away for a few hours, you can have this and you're just in case. And it's a lot more freeing than being weighed down by a huge purse.

03:26 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, I definitely appreciate that. And I can imagine everybody who's using this probably definitely shaking their head, you know, thinking the same thing, especially when you're busy and you're on the go and having to worry about everything that you're gonna do wherever you're going in addition to making sure like all everything's in the right place. I can imagine that it's so much. And I love that so many times, I think some of the greatest like inventions that things that come about are from us kind of scratching our own itch and understanding that we need something. And then all of a sudden you start to realize that you're not the only one and you get to create a really phenomenal product.

03:56 – Lynda T. Correa Peralta

Absolutely. And I had that idea of like, I need this thing. So I'm just gonna kind of make it by myself with the sandwich bag. But really Gresham, it wasn't until a few years later when I was in the bathroom in business school and I overheard women getting ready for interviews after class. And there they go with their huge makeup bag in the gross public bathroom sink and saying like, they were literally saying like, I hate that we have to carry this around just to get ready for these things. And that's when I popped out of the bathroom and was like, hey, would you be interested in like this thing where you can kind of carry it with you, but it's thin and it's disposable.” And they were like, yeah, totally. That sounds awesome. So that was all the market research that I did before I went fully into production mode. So yeah, that's how I came about.

04:44 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. I love those stories just because again, so many times we think that yesterday you had that idea and then you woke up and then you created it, but you really hear the progression, you hear the market research and everything and you hear the demand that was there and you decided to create something to fulfill that demand. Absolutely. Awesome, awesome, awesome. So I know you drill down until how exactly it works. Could you tell us a little bit more about that and how you serve your clients and then anything additional that you might do to serve the clients you work with?

05:12 – Lynda T. Correa Peralta

Oh, for the branding service or in general?

05:15 – Gresham Harkless:

Yeah, so- Combination

05:16 – Lynda T. Correa Peralta

of both, yeah. So with Pocket Palette, I, this was, okay, so 2016, 2017, I designed the Pocket Palette with Instagram in mind. I thought about like, what is a way that, and So for the viewers who will see this later maybe, I really wanted to make a cute product. Cute is the word that we're going for because I wanted people to take pictures of it and I wanted people to be like, oh my gosh, that is cute. So I really started with that end result in mind when it came to my packaging. And I did this sort of naturally just because, you know, again, the problem solvers that, okay, what's the solution and how do we work backward to where I am now? So I had that idea that I wanted people to take pictures of it to say, oh my gosh, this is so cute.

I desperately need this. And so then that comes with product development of how do we make that happen? And so I talked about that bathroom being the first product research and that was what really prompted me to do research for real. And so ultimately ended up talking to over 365 women. I had focus groups, I had surveys, and people on the mall in DC just like talk to me about your makeup habits. And it really just came down to like yes everybody has their own reason for you know why they use makeup but they do recognize that when you need it you need it and that was that need that I wanted to get to. And so this story of starting at the end and working my way back is really how I started to think about my branding help.

So I really didn't know there was a brand coach until a friend of mine told me, oh, I have this classmate, and she wants to talk to you about branding. Can you help her? And I was like, oh, okay, sure. I don't really know anything about her product or even had other classmates from different years saying like, oh, I'm building this wearable tie for men, but what can you help me with branding? I'm like, I'm really not the demographic for this. But in that, what do you want your customers to say and how do you get there? That was really the key to branding for me. And so now I help people who I call reluctant millennials because they are the ones who like are very intimidated by influencer culture.

They think that because they are not a CEO, because they are not influencers or a CEO, they're maybe lawyers, they're maybe even too smart to care about branding. And I just help them think that your brand exists already, whatever it is that you want it to be. And so is, are you happy with the way it exists? And once people hear it like that, they're like, oh, well, I don't know, what do people say about me and whatever and like, yes, there's a point to say like, you have to not care about what people say about you and think about you know, it's live your own life that whole thing is great.

But if they're going to say something, I want to put words into their mouth and to say like, this is what I want them to say. So yeah, so it's been, I have a lot of reluctant millennials. I have even now some Gen Z who are like, Oh, I never thought about like my, my digital presence exists and I haven't thought about like what that says about me. So yeah, it's really about asking those questions and helping people get to their end result.

08:38 – Gresham Harkless

I wanted to ask you now for what I call your secret sauce. This could be for yourself or your business or a combination of both, but what do you feel kind of sets you apart or makes you unique?

08:46 – Lynda T. Correa Peralta

So as a brand coach, I think what makes me unique is that I completely, like it's easier, it's harder for a coach who does things naturally to explain, oh, you just gotta be like this. You just gotta be open, open-ended, and whatever. And yes, I have a lot of extra virgins just and people naturally see me a certain way, but it's that effect that I struggled too with branding like I built a product, a physical product that was out of thin air and I had no experience in the beauty industry.

I had no experience in packaging or anything like that. My experience in the beauty industry was shopping at CVS. So it's the fact that people know that I struggled and I overcame it and now I'm doing it in a way that people don't feel intimidated by it. They say like, okay, you're not, you're not the 1 that I need to be embarrassed to share my struggles with. And I think that's something that's always set me apart that people just naturally because I'm so open about it, that they want to, you know, work with me in that way.

09:51 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome, Awesome, Awesome. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an Apple book or a habit that you have, but What's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

10:03 – Lynda T. Correa Peralta

So gosh, OK, I will stop at the CEO hack. I don't know about more efficient, but something, a book recently that I read maybe 2 years ago that I think about almost daily is called Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer. It's called The Art and Science of Remembering Everything. And really what it does is as a busy CEO, as a person who meets people, and we've all been in that situation where you meet a name, somebody and you just heard their name and then you forget right away. This book really helps you understand how you remember things. It goes through the journey of a journalist who starts off having barely remembered a phone number to then winning one of the national championships for like memory games.

And it helps me just put things into a different perspective when I'm thinking like okay how am I going to remember this it actually helped me a lot with branding too because you know it's what you want people to remember about you so yeah I recommend it's it's a fun easy read Moonwalking with Einstein it's you'll understand why it's called that but it's yeah definitely I recommend this book to more people than I think makes sense to me, but it's a lot of fun to read and it helps you think about what you say and how you say it and how you remember things.

11:25 – Gresham Harkless

I wanted to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So this could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It could be around personal branding or it might be just general business advice, or it might be something if you were to hop into a time machine, you would tell your younger business self.

11:38 – Lynda T. Correa Peralta

Yeah, I think people are really intimidated by people. So I tell my clients, if you want to speak to the VP of whatever blah, blah, blah of your company, or you need to email them or you are you know, your hand is shaking. I love that tick-tock meaning of like you send off an email and your hands are shaking because you're so nervous that you did it. I even tell my students this I teach undergraduate students and I tell them like, just imagine that the person you cold called or the LinkedIn message is reading your message on the toilet because chances are they might be doing that.

So if you put them in that perspective of like, this is a regular person who is just reading an email, chances are their kid is screaming, their dog needs to go to the bathroom, and this is their alone time and they're on the toilet and they're reading your email asking for an informational interview. Take them down a notch in your head so that you can not be, the worst thing is when you count yourself out of opportunities. So let other people do that, but never say no to yourself first as the first step. So yeah, that's the little tip that I have that I tell people just to think about it that way that you know they're like they're humans too and it's easy to say oh everyone's just people but like no if you really picture them pretty graphically like this It does something else to you.

13:02 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, I absolutely appreciate that. That's kind of like the 2.0 version. I always heard that whenever you're doing public speaking, just imagine everybody with their underwear on. And that will help you to kind of, I guess, lighten the mood, so to speak. But I love that piece because it's so important that we don't forget the human aspect of business, whether we're talking about personal branding or definitely if we're sending an email out or reaching out to somebody we always wanted to connect with, if we kind of take them off that pedestal, so to speak, and understand that they're just a human, just like we are. They have frustrations, they have things that they like, they have things that they love and so on and so forth. That allows us to have that human connection and that interaction, which is what we're hoping for at the end of the day.

13:41 – Lynda T. Correa Peralta

Absolutely. Business-to-business selling is just person-to-person selling. Direct-to-consumer selling is just person-to-person selling. It's all just about people. And it helps to have to humanize people when you speak to them.

13:55 – Gresham Harkless

Yes, absolutely. So I love that. And so now I want to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping that different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. So Linda would just being a CEO mean to you?

14:06 – Lynda T. Correa Peralta

This is also part of, my branding thing. I don't really like to call myself the CEO often unless like I'm doing it for a very specific reason, I like to call myself the inventor the coach, and the leader of certain things. So I think that CEO is being able to step into any of the hats that you have to wear and ultimately coach other people to get to that point. I learned very early on in my career that you could do all of the work by yourself and one, it's exhausting, but two it just is not gonna be as high quality of a work if you do everything by yourself.

So in coaching other people to do their best work, that is what makes you a better leader. That is what makes you a better CEO. And if you're doing it as a CEO, then you're doing it for many people and for many business lines and for many humans. So yeah, I like to consider myself as a, I'm going to help you give you the best tools for your job, and let you succeed. That's what being a CEO means to me.

15:14 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, Linda truly appreciates that definition. I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is just pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best they can get ahold of you and find out about all the awesome things that you're working on.

15:28 – Lynda T. Correa Peralta

Yeah, absolutely. I guess the very last thing that I would say is that your presence and your brand exist. There is like one of those beautiful wall coats that people don't remember. What you say, they remember how you felt and you can communicate that through your brand that is why it's important to at least be aware that you are either choosing to actively work on it or choosing not to, both are okay. I'm happy to talk to people. My website is lindalathinanba.com and that's L-Y-N-D-A, latinanba.com. And yeah, I'm happy to connect with people. You can learn more about Pocket Collette, and my story there, connect, we can find each other and then talk as humans talk to each other.

16:14 – Gresham Harkless

Yes, Absolutely. And to make it even easier for humans to talk, we will have the links and information. The show knows as well too, that everybody can follow up with you, but truly appreciate all the work that you, you know, you do. I appreciate the time you took today and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of

16:27 – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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